This project sets out to demonstrate that media coverage can degrade a country's image by using selective news without context. It uses the Netherlands as an example. It is a reaction to the frequent misrepresentations of Israel in many ways in major media, including those of the Netherlands.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Due to the
strike by the money transporter Brink’s-Nederland, more and more teller
machines are empty of cash.At present,
670 machines of the big Rabobank no longer hold any cash.That means that about 30% of the machines are
thus useless.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Jewish
community of Zeeland is shocked by the destruction of two graves in the Jewish
cemetery in Vlissingen. There are no marks on the vandalized stones, so it is
not clear whether or not it is an anti-Semitic act.

Monday, December 29, 2014

The new
synagogue of the Jewish community in Haarlem has been inaugurated.It is located in the suburb of Heemstede. It
is not recognizable in any way as a synagogue from the outside for security reasons.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

The number
of complaints about the danger of fireworks is rapidly increasing. A mere three days after the opening of the complaint
call center, 10,000 complaints have already been received.The call center is the initiative of 25 local
branches of the Green-Left party.According to the center, more and more people are disturbed by the hard
explosions, the precipitous use of fireworks, and the unsafe situation in the
street.A spokesman of Green-Left in
Rotterdam, Arne Bonte, said, “One sees that people are blowing up intentionally
waste-paper baskets, chairs, and even cars.”

Friday, December 26, 2014

On Wednesday the site for complaints
about hindrance from firework was opened. By Thursday morning the number of
complaints stood at 2200. Most complaints are about very heavy fireworks. The
total number will presented to Parliament.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Ali Akgun, one of the main suspects
in a series of murders in Amsterdam, has been killed in Istanbul.He was waiting in his Bentley car at a red
light and was shot from nearby with automatic weapons.Akgun had been involved in the drug
trade.In his youth, he was the captain
of the Turkish football club Turkiyemspor, a leading football club in
Amsterdam.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

The AD Daily has also eliminated
from its archives all articles written by the journalist Perdiep Ramesar. These include articles Ramesar wrote over
years, up until 2007, for the Haagche Courant, and later for AD. The editor-in-chief of AD said that since neither
the journalist nor his supervisors are employed by AD, research into the matter
would be superfluous, as they would not suffer any consequences. Earlier, the daily Trouw had fired
Ramesar for apparently inventing parts of interviews with fictitious people.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

During the past two years more than
a million Dutchmen have become victims of internet fraud. In total they have been
cheated out of more than 5 billion Euro. This results from the Fraudehelpdesk,
the national center for reporting on fraud. Many victims have not complained
with the police out of shame or because they have little trust in the police.
Victims often think that the police is busy with other things such as handing out
traffic fines.

Monday, December 22, 2014

The daily Trouw has deleted
126 articles of the journalist Perdiep Ramesar who was fired last month. The
daily admits that Ramesar had used during 5.5 year “an unexplainable number of anonymous
sources, which could not be found.” An
investigation commission says that Ramesar often used fictitious names, which could
not be verified by the editors. They also say that his bosses have not controlled
him sufficiently.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

In a poll taken by pollster Maurice
de Hond the two government parties are found to be extremely unpopular. The liberal
VVD of Prime Minister Mark Rutte which holds 41 seats would get, according to
the poll 18 seats, if elections were held now. The other government party, Labor (PvdA) which holds 38 seats
would go down to 10 seats. Together the government parties with 28 seats would
get less seats than the Progress party (PVV) led by Geert Wilders which according
to the poll would get 30 seats as against 15 seats in the current parliament.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

The general intelligence service AIVD
has frequently listened in to the phone conversations of the law office Prakken
d’Oliveira in Amsterdam. The office defended inter alia many people suspected
of terror activities. According to the lawyers this has been confirmed by
Minister of the Interior Ronald Plasterk. The commission of supervision of
intelligence services CTIVD has concluded that the AIVD has acted wrongly by
transcribing also conversations which were irrelevant to its investigations of
terrorism.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Rob Bertholee, the head of the Dutch
General Intelligence service AIVD has said at a congress in the United Sates
that most of the Dutch jihadis who travel to Syria or Iraq are as Dutch as wooden
shoes and windmills. Nevertheless they radicalize. Bertholee remarked that the
jihadis come out of all layers of Dutch society, including very good families.
Some have a university degree. There was even a medical doctor among them. He
added that there are also criminal elements among them. Bertholee observed: “once seven jihadis from one town left
simultaneously and the crime figures thereupon decreased. Bertholee also
mentioned culture conflicts, saying: “many are not accepted in Dutch society as
Dutch nor among Dutch Moroccans as Moroccans.”

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The
Federatie Opvang in Amersfoort says that the number of homeless has increased
in 2013 to over 60,000 people. In 2012,
the number was close to 58,000, and in 2010, it was 55,000. The organization says that the new homeless
are not people with psychological problems, but rather people who lose their
home due to debts, unemployment or a too-high mortgage.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

A study done
by the Scientific Research and Documentation Center (WODC) has found that 95%
of cannabis grown in the Netherlands is exported. Even if cannabis becomes
legal within the Netherlands, the issue of the criminality involved will not be
solved. These findings are a big
disappointment for those who want to legalize the growing of cannabis because
their argument, that with legalization the criminality ends, has been found
worthless.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

The Dutch Nato
headquarters in the town of Brunssum are a possible target of Muslim
terrorists. Mayor Luc Winants of the town confirms that he has been briefed
about that. Fifteen hundred people work at the site. Additional security
measures have been taken. Parliamentarian Joram Van Klaveren (VNL) has asked
clarification about this issue from the Ministers of Defense and Safety and
Justice.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Four
opposition parties say that the Minister of Finance refuses to give parliament
an insight on deals the Tax Authority makes with international companies, such
as Starbuck’s and Google. This prevents
parliament from properly functioning and controlling the Ministry of
Finance. It also creates lack of
confidence in the fiscal authorities and what they promise individual companies
in exchange for having them establish a commercial base in the Netherlands.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

A number of
leading criminals have left Amsterdam for abroad in order to avoid the murders occurring
in Amsterdam.This was said by Chief
Police Commissioner Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg in an AT5 program.He added that there is a very large territory
outside the Netherlands where criminals can go into hiding.The program in which the Chief Police Commissioner
spoke dealt with the current wave in Amsterdam of murders of criminals by other
criminals.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

In his
just-published biography by journalist Ton Crijnen the Dutch cardinal Ad Simonis
admits that he knew since 2000 that there were accusations of pedophilia against
the assistant bishop of Utrecht Jan Nienhaus, who passed away later that year. Only
in 2014 it became known that the Catholic Church had found in 2012 that
Nienhaus was guilty of four cases of pedophilia. In 2011 it became known that Simonis
had already in 1991 protected another pedophile priest.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

The Social
and Cultural Planning Bureau has polled 3,000 Dutchmen.60% of those polled see tensions between
Autochtonuos (native) Dutchmen and those of immigrant origins. Many see
tensions between religious groups, between the poor and the rich, and between workers
and employers.Two-thirds of the Dutch
think that the Netherlands is moving in the wrong direction.Of these people, 85% blame the country’s
elite, politicians, managers and the economically powerful. These elite are
seen as serving their own interests and are perceived as not having any contact
with the ordinary citizens nor with their concerns.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

There is no
transparent view on the billions the Netherlands spends on international development
aid.. The National Accountancy Office (Algemene Rekenkamer) says that one can
speak about a “Development Aid Labyrinth,’ because there are so many countries which
get so much aid for a multitude of projects. In particular concerning the money
which is spent via international organizations it is unclear how much money is
spent in each receiving country. Often it is not clear whether the aimed for
progress is achieved. In 2013 the Netherlands spent 4.2 billion Euro on
development aid.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Twenty family members of those killed
in the shot down Malaysian plane over Eastern Ukraine accuse the Netherlands of
having totally mismanaged the factual and criminal investigation of the disaster.
They have written so in a letter to Dutch Prime Minister Rutte. They want the United
Nations to take over the investigation. The signatories of the letter come from
Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and the United States. Their lawyer Bob van
der Goen says there is no leadership and no coordination by The Netherlands.

Monday, December 8, 2014

In each of the past six years the number
of suicides in the Netherlands has increased. In 2013 1854 people committed suicide
according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). The CBS supposes that this
development is linked to the economic crisis. Also at the beginning of the
1980s when the economic situation was difficult there was an increase in suicides
in the Netherlands. It are nowadays mainly people between 40 and 65 who commit suicide.
Seven out of ten people who commit suicide are male.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

The massive data
collection regarding the internet, email and telephone behavior of all Dutch
citizens has to be stopped immediately.
That is the demand of a court case brought by the Dutch Association of
Criminal Lawyers, The Journalists’ Trade Union (NVJ) and the Privacy First
Foundation. Earlier this year, the
European Court of Justice decided that the recording of phone and internet data
was a heavy attack on privacy. It
remains unclear to what extent this collection of data was necessary for the
fight against terrorism and criminality. Since 2009, all telecom companies are
required to maintain, during one year, data on who called whom and when, and
from what location. Internet providers
have to be able to tell, during half a year, who emailed whom and when, and when
somebody logged in or out of the internet.

Friday, December 5, 2014

The European
Commission says that the Dutch law does not fully meet the European rules about
the right of a patient to obtain healthcare in other European countries.The Commission wants to hear within two
months which measures the Netherlands has taken to rectify this, otherwise the
Commission may take the Netherlands to the European court.The Netherlands has to agree that patients
have the right to receive care in other countries while declaring the costs in
the Netherlands.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

A study conducted
by the OESO, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, found
that psychological problems cost Dutch society 20 billion Euro annually. This
includes the costs of caretaking, sick leave, loss of production, and the
incapacity to work.The study also showed
that two-thirds of the Dutchmen with psychological illness or complaints do go
to work.Compared to other countries,
the overall situation in the Netherlands is bad.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

A new book
by Marcel van Silfhout and Andries van den Berg, titled Die Ontsporing, claims
that the then-Minister of Transport, Tineke Netelenbos, lied when she said that
the high speed line had to be put out to a public contract according to
European rules.When the bid proposal
was put out, the Dutch railways (NS) were afraid to lose the contract and put
in a far too high bid of 178 million Euro per year. The result was that they then
had to buy cheap trains from AnsaldoBreda.The Fyra trains that were supplied had too many problems and ultimately
were returned to the manufacturers.

Monday, December 1, 2014

A poll done
by Maurice de Hond among 2,500 interviewees shows that 56% believe that the
integration of immigrants, which have come to the Netherlands after the war,
has failed.Only 14% consider that the
integration has been a success.These
are mainly voters of the Liberal Democrats of D66 or of the Labor party.Among those who believe that integration has
failed, 82% hold the Labor party responsible, and 46% consider that the
Liberals are also responsible.

Welcome to the Bad News from The Netherlands blog!

News coverage from Israel is often distorted if measured against the 'Code of Ethics' guidelines of journalism. The origins of “bad news” about a country thus lie with numerous foreign media. This project exposes one of many methods used.

“Bad News from the Netherlands” has raised major international interest since it appeared on the web in October 2007. Many thanks are due to all those who have contributed news, ideas and financing. Support us to expand this project.

Act against the biased media: start a “bad news” blog about another country. If you want to use this layout, please contact us at the e-mail address below.

Do It Yourself

The "Bad News Movement" is not a franchise, but consists ofindependent initiatives of which Bad News from the Netherlands is the first. Yet as the initiator of the movement, we would like to make a few suggestions to those who want to establish similar projects:

1. Always keep in mind the target of the blog: showing only negative items about a country makes its society aware of how some of their media distort the image of Israel.2. Focus on items from leading sources such as the government, major media, well-known institutions.3. Do not concentrate on one or a few areas. Deal with as many major aspects of the country as possible: government, politics, justice, media, culture, civil society, etc.4. Do not exaggerate issues beyond what is mentioned. A collection of bad news is bad enough without blowing up the facts. Let the facts speak for themselves.5. While one can draw part of the information from the more sensational papers, let them not dominate the blog.6. Do not emphasize ethnicity of people where it is irrelevant to the issue.7. When necessary, provide comments on issues which require it, but try to present the majority of issues without comment.